Air Force takes partnership approach to wildland fire management

  • Published
  • By Jennifer Schneider
  • AFCEC Public Affairs
The Air Force has taken a new approach to Air Force wildland fire management by maximizing the use of interagency partnerships to address fire management and suppression requirements - an initiative that is expected to save time and money for all parties involved.

The partnerships are the cornerstone of a strategy by the Air Force Civil Engineer Center's Wildland Fire Center, headquartered at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, to ensure the Air Force has the necessary infrastructure in place to tackle wildfire risk and protect Air Force missions, assets and personnel nationwide.

"Through partnerships with agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, we can maximize the use of shared resources to effectively mitigate fire risk, while achieving significant time and cost savings for installations and ranges across the Air Force," said J.P. Smith, acting chief of the Air Force Wildland Fire Center.

Extreme wildfire behavior has escalated over the past two decades and accounts for more than $15 million annually in Air Force claims alone, posing a growing liability to installation commanders who are already grappling with budget and personnel reductions.

Interagency partnerships help the Air Force and the nation as a whole, meet these challenges by supporting the three overarching goals of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy: to restore and maintain landscapes, protect communities from wildfire and effectively respond to wildfires when they occur.

One way the Air Force is promoting interagency collaboration is through the sharing of personnel and resources. The Air Force Wildland Fire Center is in the process of establishing regional offices at Vandenberg AFB, California; Peterson AFB, Colorado; and Eglin AFB, as well as a regional office at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. The four offices will manage 12 "wildland support teams" situated at installations posing the highest fire risk to Air Force operations. These teams will provide fire prevention, hazard mitigation, prescribed fire and resource management in undeveloped forested or grassland habitats for the protection of threatened and endangered species, as well as wildfire suppression nationwide.

These Air Force teams will primarily be staffed with fire planners, ecologists and wildland firefighters from partnering agencies, allowing both the Air Force and its partners to reduce overhead by co-funding key shared positions and facility costs, while simultaneously providing the Air Force with the expertise and capabilities of the most qualified personnel in the nation, Smith said. 

"While it is true that there will be substantial time and cost savings, even more importantly, these partnerships will improve our effectiveness at wildland fire management and response across all military missions nationwide," said Suzanne Bilbrey, director of the AFCEC Environmental Management Directorate.

Maintaining and expanding these partnerships is crucial to successful wildland fire management now and in the future, Smith said.